The person who allegedly leaked the new Avatar movie has been arrested
The Strait Era reports that Singapore police arrested a 26-year-old man who allegedly downloaded the new Avatar film (previously titled The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender) online after accessing a server the project was running on ahead of its scheduled October 9 premiere on Paramount Plus. According to authorities, a copy of the entire film was found on the suspect’s electronic devices. If he is ultimately convicted of unauthorized access to computer equipment, he could face a prison sentence of up to 10 years as well as a $50,000 fine.
The leaks first appeared in an April 11 X post from an anonymous user who claimed that someone at Nickelodeon (which is owned by Paramount Skydance) “accidentally sent an email to [them] the entire Avatar Aang movie. Although the post has since been deleted, it initially remained active for hours and the leaked images quickly began spreading online.
It is unclear whether account user X is the same person who was arrested. Talk to The Hollywood Reportera person claiming to be behind the leak said they were trying to “troll a little” because of Paramount’s decision to release Avatar Aang directly to its streaming service rather than giving it a theatrical debut as the studio had initially announced. But this specific leaker also said THR that they had not planned to download the entire film after initially receiving it from a hacker associated with the PeggleCrew hacking collective. After its internal investigation, Paramount determined that the leaks did not come from people working within the company itself.
While leaks are nothing new to the entertainment industry, it was shocking to see almost an entire completed film appear on the Internet months before its planned release in such high definition. Avatar fans are especially harsh considering how Avatar Aang — the first of three planned animated films — marked the first time series co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino returned to the franchise following their sudden exit from Netflix’s live-action adaptation of the original animated series.
People with direct professional ties to the Avatar frankness was also expressed. Michaela Jill Murphy (Toph Beifong’s original voice actor) – who urged her fans on TikTok not to get involved in the leaks at all out of respect for the film’s creative team. Animator Julia Schoel, who worked on Avatar Aangspoke candidly on
“I completely understand that people don’t want to pay/support [Paramount Plus]”, Schoel explained. “But pirating the film after its release would have at least been better than that. This is incredibly disrespectful to all the artists’ hard work.
News of the alleged leaker’s arrest comes just days after the Tokyo District Court sentenced a man to prison for running a website dedicated to publishing spoiler-filled summaries of recently released series and films. And while piracy probably isn’t going to stop anytime soon, it definitely seems like studios are willing to play hardball when it comes to protecting their intellectual property.
